Ms Rayya Ghul

National Teaching Fellow 2008 Rayya Ghul is a Senior Lecturer of Occupational Therapy and Programme Director of the MSc Advanced Occupational Therapy Practice in the Department of Allied Health Professions at Canterbury Christ Church University. A passionate advocate for the power of occupational therapy her enthusiasm has found a natural outlet in higher education which, she believes, has the power to transform the lives of both students and staff. Since she joined the University in 2001, Rayya has been involved in promoting and developing active learning strategies on all the courses with which she has been involved. Her particular strength lies in helping students to engage confidently with complex concepts and she has developed innovative ways to help students build the knowledge and skills required to be successful occupational therapists. In particular, she has actively promoted the inclusion of ideas from the foundational discipline of Occupational Science which provides evidence of the importance of participation in everyday life to health and well being. With her colleague, Ian Marsh, Rayya developed an educational tool called 'Contexts of Participation: the Critical Thinking Tool'. The tool promotes critical consideration of the national, social and individual determinants of health and wellbeing and is of interest to health and social care, public health, education and disciplines concerned with the interaction of people and society. She has received a research grant from the Higher Education Academy to develop an interactive version of the tool which will be disseminated in 2009. Rayya has been active in promoting the inclusion of service users and carers into the delivery of programmes in the Faculty of Health and Social Care. In particular, she pioneered the introduction of mini-conferences into occupational therapy modules. This allows service users and carers to speak to the students from the position of an expert on the conference panel. After one mini-conference a student commented, "From a learning perspective this is a wonderful way to be taught, very thought-provoking and a lesson in humanity." Rayya is also internationally recognised as an authority on  Solution Focused Approaches and is author of Creating Positive Futures: Solution Focused Recovery from Mental Distress .